How coaches are motivating the Wichita State basketball team for Memphis road game
It was nearly two months ago when the Memphis men’s basketball team enforced its will on Wichita State and left Koch Arena with a rare 18-point victory.
The way some of the Memphis players celebrated on WSU’s home court bothered the Shockers, a memory that will be refreshed plenty ahead of the return trip to FedExForum in Memphis for Sunday’s 1:30 p.m. showcase game on ESPN.
Wichita State (13-11, 4-8 American Athletic Conference) is coming off a heart-wrenching, double-overtime loss to Houston last weekend, its fifth loss in league play by five points or less. WSU coach Isaac Brown hopes the thirst for revenge will replace the bitter disappointment from last weekend and serve as the motivation to score the team’s first road win in conference play.
“We’ve talked about how they manhandled us the first time and what we’ve got to do better,” Brown said. “We’ll show them highlights of when (Memphis) was putting their fists up in the air, their bench was jumping up and down in our building.”
Since the arrival of Penny Hardaway, Memphis’ ultra-aggressive defense has been a bad matchup for the Shockers. Under Hardaway, Memphis has won five of the six meetings against WSU by an average margin of 12 points.
The last two meetings against Memphis (15-9, 9-5), the only two since 2021, have been blowout victories for the Tigers. Brown knows the Shocker will need another effort like they brought against Houston to come away with their first win in Memphis since 2018.
“You’ve got to take care of the basketball,” Brown said. “You can’t get sped up. You can’t get loose with it. You can’t make careless passes. You’ve got to be able to handle these double teams because Memphis is going to start pressing us as soon as we step in the building.”
In the first meeting from this season, Wichita State brought a lackadaisical effort in the first half and was punished by Memphis to the tune of giving up 49 points by halftime. The Shockers fell behind by as many as 28 points early in the second half before rallying late to stave off further embarrassment.
A repeat effort like that won’t cut it. Brown has been using six defenders in practice to try to simulate Memphis’ swarming, pressure defense. Because of how aggressive Memphis is at taking risks on defense, Brown figures WSU isn’t likely to be able to run its traditional offense — that’s why he has his team practicing more this week on capitalizing in what he calls “breakdown” basketball.
“Memphis is going to make you make basketball decisions,” Brown said. “They’re going to pick you up full-court and they’re going to run and jump and you’re not going to be able to run your plays. You have to take care of the basketball, make good decisions and then we’re going to have to rebound like we did against Houston.”
Brown admitted the Houston loss “took a lot out of us,” making the week-long break in between games important for recovery. The Shockers showed when they bring their best effort, they can go toe-to-toe with any team in the conference.
But how many gut punches can one team withstand? Brown said he wasn’t worried about his players’ psyches becuase they have been a resilient bunch all season and they once again responded in practice with good effort.
“The thing I talked to them about was that we’ve got to learn from that game,” Brown said. “Hopefully we can learn from it and get better. They’ve been good this week, really positive.”
.jpg)